Thailand is emerging as Asia's most ambitious artificial intelligence (AI) market, with local enterprises planning the region's largest increase in AI investment despite an acute shortage of skilled talent, according to a survey by Alibaba Cloud.
The AI Business Application Readiness and Accessibility Survey, commissioned by Alibaba Cloud and conducted by NielsenIQ across eight Asian markets, found that 79% of Thai enterprises plan to increase AI investment by at least 50%, the highest proportion among the countries surveyed.
The findings reflect a broader shift across Asia as enterprises move beyond AI experimentation and accelerate deployment to improve productivity, drive innovation and strengthen competitiveness.
Across the region, 90% of companies said they are optimistic about AI adoption, while 95% plan to increase spending on AI products and services.
More than half expect AI budgets to rise by more than 20% across cloud infrastructure, development platforms and AI models over the next year.
"The research findings reinforce Alibaba Cloud's belief that AI, delivered on top of scalable, secure cloud infrastructure and models, will be the defining technology platform for the next decade," said Feifei Li, chief technology officer and president of international business at Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group.
Around 75% of Asian enterprises said AI is already indispensable to their operations, while nearly 90% have adopted AI development platforms and AI models. Only 1% said AI is not a business priority.
Across Asia, enterprises are prioritising AI applications that deliver immediate commercial value.
Data analysis and decision-making ranked as the top use case at 66%, followed by customer service and chatbots at 64%, marketing and content creation at 58%, product development and coding at 55%, and human resources at 38%.
The main driver of AI investment has also shifted beyond cost reduction. While 63% of respondents cited improving operational efficiency, 64% said AI is primarily being adopted to create new business opportunities and accelerate innovation.
The survey also highlights growing demand for integrated AI and cloud platforms. About 45% of respondents preferred a fully integrated AI and cloud solution, compared with 34% favouring hybrid deployment across multiple cloud environments.
Despite strong investment momentum, enterprises continue to face significant obstacles in scaling AI.
Data privacy and security remain the biggest concern, cited by 48% of respondents, followed by implementation costs at 42% and shortages of AI expertise at 37%.
Thailand faces an even greater talent challenge. Some 63% of Thai respondents identified the availability of AI skills as their most urgent support requirement, while 53% cited implementation costs as a major barrier to wider AI adoption.
Language remains another critical issue. In Thailand and several other Asian markets, respondents said the shortage of high-quality local-language AI models continues to hinder wider deployment, highlighting growing demand for multilingual AI capable of supporting local business environments.
